Wade y Hulland

REVIEW: THE RESOURCE-BASED VIEW AND
INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH:
REVIEW, EXTENSION, AND SUGGESTIONS
FOR FUTURE RESEARCH1
By: Michael Wade
Schulich School of Business
York University
4700Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
CANADA
mwade@schulich.yorku.ca
John Hulland
Graduate School of Business
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
U.S.A.
jhulland@katz.pitt.edu
AbstractInformation systems researchers have a long tra-
dition of drawing on theories from disciplines such
as economics, computer science, psychology, and
general management and using them in their ownresearch. Because of this, the information sys-
tems field has become a rich tapestry of theore-
1Jane Webster was the accepting senior editor for this
paper.
tical and conceptualfoundations. As new
theories are brought into the field, particularly
theories that have become dominant in other
areas, there may be a benefit in pausing to assess
their use andcontribution in an IS context. The
purpose of this paper is to explore and critically
evaluate use of the resource-based view of the
firm (RBV) by IS researchers.
The paper provides a brief reviewof resource-
based theory and then suggests extensions to
make the RBV more useful for empirical IS
research. First, a typology of key IS resources is
presented, and these are thendescribed using six
traditional resource attributes. Second, we em-
phasize the particular importance of looking at
both resource complementarity and moderating
factors when studying ISresource effects on firm
performance. Finally, we discuss three consi-
derations that IS researchers need to address
when using the RBV empirically. Eight sets ofpropositions are advanced to help guide future
research.
Keywords: Resource-based view, organizational
impacts of IS, information systems resources,
competitive advantage, IS strategic planning,...